We begin today’s roundup with historian and professor Dr. Matthew Dallek who documents the history of right-wing violence in America and its shift from fringe to mainstream Republican acceptance:
The Reagan-era “government is the problem” language and ideology has been transformed into a philosophy that casts the government as not just a problem but as evil, a threat to the values MAGA supporters hold dear. Under Mr. Trump’s leadership, groups on the right have felt increasingly comfortable incubating, encouraging and carrying out violence.
The consistency of the rhetoric (“enemy of the people”; “Our house is on fire”; “You’re not going to have a country anymore”; “the greatest theft in the history of America”; “Where’s Nancy?”) has ingrained dehumanization of Republican opponents in parts of the political culture; conservatives have often painted their critics as enemies who must be annihilated before they destroy you. As the Department of Homeland Security has reported, domestic violent extremism — such as the white supremacist Charlottesville riots and the Jan. 6 insurrection — is one of the most pressing internal threats facing the United States.
As Max Boot emphasized at The Washington Post, with rare occurrences on the left, political violence in America is not a “both sides” issue:
It should not be controversial to say that America has a major problem with right-wing political violence. The evidence continues to accumulate — yet the GOP continues to deny responsibility for this horrifying trend. [...]
Violence is unacceptable whether from the left or right, period. But we can’t allow GOP leaders to get away with this false moral equivalency. They are evading their responsibility for their extremist rhetoric that all too often motivates extremist actions.
The New America think tank found last year that, since Sept. 11, 2001, far-right terrorists had killed 122 people in the United States, compared with only one killed by far-leftists. A study from the Center for Strategic and International Studieslast year found that, since 2015, right-wing extremists had been involved in 267 plots or attacks, compared with 66 for left-wing extremists. A Washington Post-University of Maryland survey released in January found that 40 percent of Republicans said violence against the government can be justified, compared with only 23 percent of Democrats.
Alex Shephard at The New Republic:
[A]ll the years spent allowing right-wing conspiracy mongers to flourish unchecked—from Alex Jones’ rumor mongering to the online fever swamps that bred a generation of QAnon-pilled lawmakers—as well as the institutional right’s long-standing tradition of relentlessly demonizing Nancy Pelosi have caused the lines of connection between all that incendiary rhetoric and the violent attack on the speakers’ husband has created conditions in which the old ways of changing the topic are no longer sufficient. Instead, right-wingers at all levels of government and throughout their extensive media network are hard at work concocting and promoting insane conspiracy theories to absolve themselves of any complicity in this country’s worsening scourge of political violence. Paul Pelosi isn’t the first to be mocked and belittled by those who should be looking at their own involvement in the ecosystem that helped create his attacker. Sadly, he likely won’t be the last. And that’s probably how the Republican party wants it.
Chris Lehmann at The Nation:
The typical Republican tactic is to downplay or deny the threats of violence within the conservative movement—and in some cases, to fold them into the broader churn of free-form conspiracy-mongering, as we’re already seeing in the wake of the Pelosi attack. “We saw that happen after January 6, with Ray Epps, the guy that they’re now claiming was a fed,” Gais adds. “They don’t want to deal with the consequences of their actions. They want the benefits of street actions and political violence, but they don’t want to deal with the consequences of where that goes.” [...] “There’s not a lot of space for Republicans to denounce it, because already the political culture of the Republican party is openly antidemocratic, founded on the feeling they’re living under the illegitimate rule of an illegal usurper,” Lowndes says. “If that’s the territory, things like attacking Democratic political officials become legitimate in a way.” Gais agrees: “January 6 is, more than Charlottesville, this unfinished chapter. I suspect that’s going to be the case for quite some time.”
Meanwhile, in case you’re wondering what Republicans are presenting to voters in the last stretch of election season, Azi Paybarah breaks it down:
Campaign ads have always had a loose association with the nuances of governance. But as the midterm elections tighten into dozens of battlegrounds across the country, a number of GOP ads are showing a breathtaking disregard for accuracy and clarity, with Republican candidates and their allies twisting tangential elements into baseless or misleading claims.
And on a final note, here is an incredibly important piece by Eliza Griswold on the rise of extremism, election denialism, and Christian nationalism in Pennsylvania:
[Republican nominee for Governor] Mastriano has pledged to radically transform voting in the state. Last May, [organizer] Faddis invited sixty-nine right-wing groups—including We the People, Ballot Security Now, and Unite PA—to the rotunda of the state capitol, in Harrisburg, to sign an “Election Integrity Declaration.” The oath, which begins with the words “We the People,” calls for the abolition of most voting that is not done in-person “with photo identification, proof of U.S. citizenship, state residency and hard copy paper ballots.” These measures could restrict voting among poor people, people of color, and other likely Democrats; they would also force poll workers to count ballots by hand, a process that could make tampering easier. And even the notion of widespread fraud lays the groundwork for future denials of election results. Toni Shuppe, Mastriano’s presumptive nominee for Pennsylvania’s secretary of state, who will certify elections if Mastriano wins, led a prayer at the U.S. Capitol during the insurrection. In Harrisburg, she sanctified the voting declaration by praying for a “spirit of unity” in the burgeoning movement.